** Impossible to restore a full backup before the most recent backup (but you can use --backup to keep old versions of the files).

+

** It is possible to restore a full backup before the most recent backup if hardlinks are allowed in the backup file system. See the section "Back up your data with rsync" in this link |http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-spunix_rsync/index.html|

+

+

** If hard links are not allowed, it is impossible to restore a full backup before the most recent backup (but you can use --backup to keep old versions of the files).

** Standard install on all distros.

** Standard install on all distros.

** Can run over SSH (port 22) or native rsync protocol (port 873).

** Can run over SSH (port 22) or native rsync protocol (port 873).

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|http://safekeep.sourceforge.net/|{{AUR|safekeep}}}}

|http://safekeep.sourceforge.net/|{{AUR|safekeep}}}}

−

* {{App|Link-Backup|A tool similar to rsync based scripts, but which does not use rsync.

+

* {{App|Link-Backup|A tool similar to rsync based scripts, but which does not use rsync. NOTE: no upstream activity since 2008.

** Creates hard links between a series of backed-up trees (snapshots).

** Creates hard links between a series of backed-up trees (snapshots).

A [[cooperative storage cloud|Wikipedia:Cooperative_storage_cloud]] is a decentralized model of networked online storage where data is stored on multiple computers, hosted by the participants cooperating in the cloud.

+

A [[Wikipedia:Cooperative_storage_cloud|cooperative storage cloud]] is a decentralized model of networked online storage where data is stored on multiple computers, hosted by the participants cooperating in the cloud.

** Ability to have a local copy ("Hot Copy") of the backed up data on a different disk or computer.

** Ability to have a local copy ("Hot Copy") of the backed up data on a different disk or computer.

** Ability to have synchronized folders between nodes (Dropbox-like).

** Ability to have synchronized folders between nodes (Dropbox-like).

+

** Closed source, using mono. Windows clients available.

|http://www.symform.com/|{{AUR|symform}}}}

|http://www.symform.com/|{{AUR|symform}}}}

Revision as of 15:15, 18 June 2013

This wiki page contains information about various backup programs. It's a good idea to have regular backups of important data, most notably configuration files (/etc/*) and the local pacman database (usually /var/lib/pacman/local/*).

What features do I expect from the backup solution? (compression, encryption, handles renames, etc.)

How do I plan to restore backups if needed?

Incremental backups

Applications that can do incremental backups remember and take into account what data has been backed up during the last run and eliminate the need to have duplicates of unchanged data. Restoring the data to a certain point in time would require locating the last full backup and all the incremental backups from then to the moment when it is supposed to be restored. This sort of backup is useful for those who do it very often.

Rsync-type backups

The main characteristic of this type of backups is that they maintain a copy of the directory you want to keep a backup of, in a traditional "mirror" fashion.

Certain rsync-type packages also do snapshot backups by storing files which describe how the contents of files and folders changed from the last backup (so-called 'diffs'). Hence, they are inherently incremental, but usually they do not have compression or encryption. On the other hand, a working copy of everything is immediately available, no decompression/decryption needed. A downside to rsync-type programs is that they cannot be easily burned and restored from a CD or DVD.

Unison — A program that synchronizes files between two machines over network (LAN or Inet) using a smart diff method + rsync. Allows the user to interactively choose which changes to push, pull, or merge.

syncBackup — A front-end for rsync that provides a fast and extraordinary copying tool. It offers the most common options that control its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the set of files to be copied.

Other backups

Most other backup applications tend to create (big) archive files and (of course) keep track of what's been archived. Creating .tar.bz2 or .tar.gz archives has the advantage that you can extract the backups with just tar/bzip2/gzip, so you do not need to have the backup program around.

Non-incremental backups

Another type of backups are those used in case of a disaster. These include application that allow easy backup of entire filesystems and recovery in case of failure, usually in the form of a Live CD or USB drive. The contains complete system images from one or more specific points in time and are frequently used by to record known good configurations.

Q7Z — P7Zip GUI for Linux, which attempts to simplify data compression and backup. It can create the following archive types: 7z, BZip2, Zip, GZip, Tar.